| Ky. Ct. App. | Sep 25, 1912
Opinion of the Court by
-Affirming.
' In August, 1908, appellant company issued to H. H. Logan, an appellee, a $2,000 fire and tornado policy on bis boarding-bouse. Later, Logan-obtained $1.200‘-ad-ditional insurance in another' company. The- building, burned. Appellant defended Logan’s suit on its policy,saying that it had no- knowledge of, and had given ho consent for, the additional insurance; and that its own-policy by its terms was therefore void. The testimony developed that when Logan made' his application and. afterward, Middleton, appellant’s agent,: told him: That-
Appellant says, however, that this rule does not apply to it, because it was purely a mutual company, under sections 702 et seq. of the Kentucky Statutes; that by insuring in, Logan became a member of it; that being a member of it, he was bound to know the limitation upon Middleton’s powers, and was bound by the provision of the company’s- by-laws that any agreement waiving any condition of the policy should be endorsed upon the policy in writing. There is respectable authority to this effect; but it was not so held in the case of Rogers v. Mutual Aid Association, 106 Ky., 371" court="Ky. Ct. App." date_filed="1899-04-14" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/rogers-v-farmers-mutual-aid-assn-7134164?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="7134164">106 Ky., 371, an action between a “member” of a mutual company, and the company, where the doctrine of Phoenix Ins. Co. v. Spiers & Thomas, supra, was expressly applied. While the insured was a member of the company, he at the same time occupied another entirely distinct and independent relation to it. Ilis rights and liabilities as a member are to be ascertained from the by-laws of the company and the statutes controlling it. His rights as a policyholder are to be determined by his contract of insurance, and the inter-relation between the company and him as insurer and insured, as in other contracts-of insurance. The officers and agents of a mutual company have the same general powers in conducting the company’s insurance business as have the corresponding officers and agents in stock companies. Such a company can waive its by-laws, or its policy provisions, like any other company; and there is no reason why its parol contract, or its consent to a thing, or its acquisition of knowledge of a thing, through its agent should not be just as valid and just as binding as in the case of a
Judgment affirmed.